She’s not afraid of Trump, but she’s worried about what the future might be like if there wasn’t a president
Haley is not sure what she’s going to do. Late Tuesday night, Haley’s team put out a statement that did not hint at her future, only that “there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump” and called on the party to address those concerns.
The campaign sent out an email that invited the press to attend prepared remarks in Charleston, S.C. Her expected suspension comes early after a lackluster showing on Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states and territories held presidential preference primary contests. Haley won one in Vermont.
After that election, she spoke to a group of people in Charleston and painted a frightening picture of what the future would be if there wasn’t a president.
“I couldn’t be more worried about America,” Haley said. Our country seems to have fallen apart. But here’s the thing — America will come apart if we make the wrong choices.”
Axiomatics of a South Carolina Democrat Governor: Trump’s Failure to Win in the New Hampshire Primary and Other State Elections
She was able to get Trump into a head-to-head race before the New Hampshire primary, when Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race. But she still failed to meaningfully close the gap between herself and the former president in primary and nationwide polls.
Haley came into the race with a lot of political experience. First elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2004, beating a 30-year incumbent Republican, she then went on to serve as the state’s first nonwhite and woman governor.
“I don’t believe in glass ceilings,” she told supporters at her campaign launch in Charleston. “I believe in creating a country where anybody can do anything and create their own American dream.”
Haley gained national recognition for her response to a racist 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston that killed nine Black churchgoers. She instigated the effort to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. Then, in 2017, Trump appointed her to represent the U.S. at the United Nations, where she became known for her hawkish foreign policy.
Haley sometimes appeared to struggle with her messaging as she straddled the difficult line between pleasing the Republican base and appealing to independents, moderate Republicans and other voters who are disaffected with Trump. When asked if slavery was a factor in the Civil War at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Haley forgot to identify it and walked back her statement.
She also stumbled in her response to a controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened access to the fertility procedure in vitro fertilization, or IVF — a procedure that has overwhelming public support, including among many voters who oppose abortion rights.
In an NBC interview, Haley said that embryos are babies and that she supports access to the procedure. Haley later told Newsmax, “you don’t want to take those fertility treatments away from women.”
Even though Haley was a popular governor while she led South Carolina, the former president’s standing in the state proved to trump hers in the state, which has a high percentage of voters who consider themselves “very conservative,” a large white and evangelical Christian population, and, notably, not many independents — a voting bloc that leaned toward Haley in the New Hampshire primary.
But her anti-Trump messaging and increased attacks on his age failed to chip away at his resounding popularity among Republicans and loyalty within his MAGA base.
What Do Haley and Biden Do Now? The Super Tuesday Results from a General-Election Rematch with the Donald Trump-Biden Era
With Haley’s departure from the race, a general-election rematch between Trump and Biden appears all but official. The candidates can’t be declared the presumptive nominee until mid- to late-March.
Voting went pretty much as expected on the most expansive election day of the primaries. Both President Biden and former President Donald Trump dominated across the country and are all but assured of a rematch against each other, however unpopular it may be with voters.
Trump went into Super Tuesday with about a little more than a 200-delegate lead. As of Tuesday night, with more delegates left to allocate, Trump led by about 700. It’s almost impossible for Haley to catch up. What does Haley do now?
Haley won independents who voted in the Republican primaries in state after state this year, but there simply weren’t enough of them. Haley was unable to dislodge Trump voters from Trump, and that was the only way anyone other than Trump could win.
That could mean that Trump could consider her for his vice president. There is still a chance, but it depends on what she says and does. Or she could be well positioned for 2028, given Trump and Biden can only serve four more years. She’s been ahead of other GOP candidates. Runners-up in the past have been rewarded by the Republican Party. Think about John McCain and Romney in the past.
Source: 4 takeaways from Super Tuesday
The Two Candidates That Are Running: How the Two Dems are Frustrated at the End of the 2016 Election. And what Do They Really Mean?
The two candidates have high levels of disaffection. The third-party candidates are threatening to make a difference. Trump’s victory speech about immigration being a threat to the country and how he alone can fix it all, is taken live and uninterrupted on cable news.
You’d be forgiven if you think that’s about the 2016 election. It’s in many ways what’s happening again – except instead of an open presidential race, one without an incumbent, there are essentially two incumbents running. The country has very differing views of both men.
Both have unfavorable ratings averaging above 50%. That’s largely unchanged for Trump over nine years in the public spotlight. Biden’s approval ratings are middling, and dissatisfaction with him from some wings of his party was evident again Tuesday night. More than 40,000 people voted uncommitted in Colorado, and almost one-fifth of the voters in Minnesota did the same. That follows up from Michigan last week when 100,000 people in the primary voted for uncommitted, too, largely because of Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Because of all that, if this was an election with anyone on the ballot who wasn’t Trump, this would be a race about change. Instead, it’s one between an incumbent and a quasi-incumbent, and Democrats are going to try their best to make it a referendum on Trump, with a lot on the line.
Eventually those who haven’t come around to that reality will. And then they will have to think past “they’re old” and get to who most aligns with their ideals, as imperfectly as either might be for some portions of their parties.
People will vote based on their priorities, whether it’s protecting reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights, or wanting to take a harder line on immigration or protecting their money. There could be a domino effect, like in states like North Carolina and Arizona, which have the kind of candidates for statewide office in the mold of Trump who have hampered the Republicans’ chances in the last three elections cycles.
There will be more going on in this election for voters to motivate them, as shown by Super Tuesday, which provided more proof for that.